This month’s Teacher of the Month is long overdue to receive this award and many others. In the TPRS/CI worldwide community Laurie Clarcq is the rock that many of us have gone to for safe harbour over the years. One of the true superstars of bringing Krashen into school buildings, Laurie brings sparkle to this […]
A repost from the fall: The culture of pushback by kids in American schools can pollute the integrity of our instruction. CI is easy to undermine – all the kid has to do is fade out or try to start a side conversation to create a problem, since ours is a community-based approach in which every
Robert got the restricted rule on a comment to “Don’t Tread on Us”. In that article, Kate received, I suppose, a well meaning email after an observation in which the administrator told her: …the objective is for students to vocalize that vocabulary…. I’m sorry, I know it’s the Christmas Season and all, but that guy
This powerful image of how CI instruction really works is from our PLC member Liam O’Neill. As with all comments that are too important to allow to scroll into the past, I am making this into a separate article with its own category. I know there are lots of categories, too many really, but if
It’s just so very easy, if you don’t like the nervousness of stories, to teach from a novel using the Read and Discuss Technique. If you are feeling the stress of stories, read on: I suggest five stages in R and D: Stage 1 – translate a paragraph with the kids. This is straight CHORAL translation. Never
If we just teach words, in lists, and have the kids write them down, it does nothing. It wastes time. That is because, if words are to be alive, they need roots and stems and leaves and connections to other plants and insects and, especially, they must find connection to the nourishment given in the
I don’t know if I published this or not yet. Kate sent it in February. I think I did publish it. But I am doing so again now so we can keep the point that Kate brings to the table in our minds and never forget it as we continue to retool. I remember that this is
A repost from Jody from last May: I have never been an advocate of “allowing two words” (but, of course, I allow them, just not as a policy. My policy is “Speak the TL”). My younger kids have zero discretion with a rule like “Two Words”. For them, two words might as well be ten
The following comment from Lynn, written in January, appears again here as a blog post because it is a great reminder about discipline. Now at the beginning of the year we absolutely need to remember to do exactly what she says below. No amount of skills at doing TPRS/CI can overcome the need to do
MB sent this link, along with the question: What is to become of US – public school teachers if this student wins this case? http://news.yahoo.com/lehigh-university-student-got-c-now-seeks-1-124956605.html
Mary Beth made this point: …re-educating is difficult when people are stuck in their ways and do not care about the research and will not read it…. The part about people in a professional position not reading the research is really, for lack of a better word, poignant. It ties back to the people Jeff mentioned
So finally after three or five or seven minutes or more minutes of this grammar translation work I calmly go to the board and write down the correct French and they just love it. They see how close they got to the correct spelling. I explain a few things, further creating the illusion that learning
